France's Flying No Smoking
Zone

The Moulin Vert in the Rue des Plantes near
Alésia.

'Shipwreck of the Week'

Paris:- Sunday, 5. November 2000:- France's
national carrier Air France has taken the unusual step of
declaring France a no-smoking zone by banning the noxious
habit on all of its flights, as of Tuesday, 1.
November.

Air France has been practicing 'no smoking' on interior
flights since 1990 and on European flights since 1993. The
measure was announced loud and clear by radio France-Info,
but according to Le Parisien it is being handled in a very
low-key manner by the company.

In fact the measure wouldn't be worth mentioning, if it
hadn't slipped out that Air France will supply 2 mg
nicotine tablets to passengers who request them. Radio
France-Info said one of these was equivalent to about four
hours of trans-Atlantic inflight
non-smoking.

Intoxicating Books

The Bibliothèque Nationale's big new super large
library in east Paris has its ups and downs, but its downs
seem to predominate.

After a fire on Friday, 6. October which closed it for a
month, 16 employees where struck by a mysterious gas
attack last Friday, and some were not fully recovered by
Monday.

On Wednesday night a security guard was stricken by the
unknown pollution and taken to hospital. While management
tries to figure out the cause, the north side of the site
has been shut down.

On Thursday, employees' representatives issued a strike
warning, claiming that the reopening after the fire has
been premature. On the same day, 700 researchers were
allowed back in after having been locked out for a
month.

'Shipwreck of the Week'

For the second fall season in a row, France's well-being
has been seriously menaced by a shipwreck.

Ten months ago the rusty bucket of a sludge barge named
'Erika' sank with a load of stinky and sticky goop, which
quickly escaped from the wreck and ruined many hundreds of
kilometres of France's Atlantic coast and endangered the
livelihood of the fishing industry.

Last Tuesday, TV-news viewers watched with astonishment
as a fairly new chemical tanker slipped out of the grasp of
ocean-going tugs, and sank off the coast of France.

Since the horrible lesson of last year's 'Erika'
disaster France has not been idle, but the seas are a
somewhat lawless place, and getting dozens of countries to
agree on their management is neither easy nor swift.

Since maritime salvage experts proved to be unable to
move quick enough last time, the government swiftly invited
Greenpeace to share its experience in dealing with the new
menace.

As of today, the wreck of the 'Ievoli Sun' is on the
bottom about 20 kilometres offshore from the island of
Cotentin, and is leaking its cargo - some of which is
supposed to be highly dangerous chemicals.

Because of the unsettled weather - a flat-out storm -
everybody is watching what they can, but are unable to do
anything. A super ocean-going anti-pollution tug was
ordered from Hamburg and it arrived on the scene
today.

Check Your Nursery for Masterpieces

About two weeks ago an old man of 80 paid a visit to the
art expert Emmanuel Servage, to ask him to take a look at a
painting he inherited about 50 years ago.

It was tacked to the wall of his grandchildrens' bedroom
like a poster. After a little careful cleaning, the
date of 1818 or 1819 became apparent, as well as the
signature of Eugène Delacroix.

Mr. Servage did some research and asked around, but the
painting appeared on no lists of works - not even on the
list of stolen artworks - by Delacroix. The piece was
immediately installed in a bank vault.

The next step is to send the painting to a committee of
the Louvre's specialists, who may take up to two years to
make an examination and a pronouncement.

About six months ago, the same Mr. Servage turned up an
unattributed painting by Nicolas Poussin in an attic,
possibly painted in 1640. This painting has been at the
Louvre for six months already.

Last week, the Louvre asked to be allowed to examine the
second painting without delay.

Sports News

Tour de France 2001

While the doped bike-racers' case ground its way through
the courts last week in Lille, the Tour de France
organization announced the route for next summer's race.
For some reason, west France will be deprived of this
summer spectacle.

France's favorite three-week bike marathon kicks off on
Saturday, 7. July at Dunkirk and wanders out of France to
Belgium, which would be nearly as bike crazy as France if
it were a bigger country. Big thrills are expected on the
fifth day of racing, with timed team trials from Verdun to
Bar-le-Duc.

The Tour will reach the Vosges mountains on Bastille Day
and will be pedaling up and down Alps three days later.
After a day of this and a short flight to the Pyrenees,
mountain riding will resume on Friday, 20. July.

After two days of high altitudes, the Tour will head
through the centre of France to Paris and wind up with its
usual roundy-roundy on the Champs-Elysées on Sunday,
29. July.

According to the calendar, France will probably close
for its August vacation on the previous Friday - so you can
expect to have a fine view of the final stage in
Paris.

Other Marathon Sports News

Last week I made a horrible, howling, blunder here by
hinting that Metropole's exclusive sports reporter for the
recently completed 'World Series' had become a 'nearly-ex
Mets fan,' due to the Yankees winning the baseball
playoffs.

I was told - in a personal high-priority message direct
from Queens via the Internet - in no uncertain terms, that
Mets fans are 'sticky' - they stick to their fandom through
rain, hail, snow, sodden hot dogs and so on and so forth -
including lackluster playing by the 'home' team.

For my wayward ways, I grovelled, I bowed low,
I
emptied ashtrays, fed the goldfish and took out the
garbage. The reason for doing so is simple - Metropole's
very own exclusive sports reporter is also a sports person,
as well as a signed-in member of the Paris branch of the
Café Metropole Club.

Earlier today our intrepid reporter entered the
world-famous New York City marathon and successfully
completed the entire distance of 26.6 miles - with looks
like a metric number - but is actually much higher in
European-style metric kilometre numbers.

Here I take out my handy 'Norma' taschenrechenscheiber -
für allgemeines Rechnen - and with it - without
batteries even! - convert Brit. Gal/lb. to the square root
of 10. No, that's not it.

I put the 'I-skala' triangle marker opposite the mile
marker on the 'A-skala' and this turns 26.2 miles into an
odd number around 42.5 kilometres. Does this sound
right?

Running this far on a Sunday through all five of New
York's boroughs is not only a great feat, but a very
significant 'first' for a club member, even if it is not
the first time this member has done this.

Our exclusive reporter and participant reported that the
day was clear but a little windy and also a bit cool. This
was not the case for the 'Complete the Marathon' party held
afterwards, according to Molly.

Watch this spot next week for an update on another race
in the United States; after which racing season there will
be over and this column will return to its regular
program.

Web Life:URLs: You Can Help

The smidgen of reader involvement has fallen into some
sort of doldrum, which I assume must have something to do
with so many fêtes being celebrated on a WorldWide
basis - Halloween, Toussaint, election day, Thanksgiving -
either Canadian; past - or American; to come - and the
delayed start of the round-the-world solo non-stop sailboat
race called the 'Vendée Globe.'

Regular readers may recall that I have requested that
you send in your favorite Paris-related Web URLs; for
publication here. If you are a new reader, this applies to
you too.

It is not necessary to send in 1238 URLs all at once, as
Alan Pavlik did a couple of weeks ago, thus earning himself
a great big 'thankyou.'

Okay folks, let's get this together and give it another
try. If you don't, I will use my regular local supplier of
Paris URLs. This week its list is devoted solely to
phobias. I can't inflict this on you, so here's last week's
selection again:

Inside Paris-Hollywood

The following one I checked, and forgot to notice if it
has any English version. For an insider's take on the
French film industry, check out Mister W, who
apparently gets his information from insiders, and this
includes some scoops such as the dates that some films will
be in the 'salles,' up to
2007.

Avant-Première

'Arts Premiers' are the subject of the new national
museum that is expected to open at the Quai Branly in 2004;
and until then their exhibitions take place in a wing of
the Louvre that has been mentioned in the 'Scene'
column.

Since the museum is having exhibitions years before it
exists, it is no wonder that it has a Web site too. This
presents a history of the project, information about the
new museum and its aims, and information about current
exhibitions. Here then, is an avant-première of the
Musée du Quai Branly.

Comics at
the BNF?

By checking the problem-prone national library's Web
site I learned that it intended to reopen on Thursday, 2.
November, and the B.D. show is scheduled to start a week
later, on Thursday, 9. November. Now it's your turn to
check out the Bibliothèque
Nationale.

Repeat - for the 'Mois de la
Photo'

Photo
Gallery is worth a look according to regular long-time
reader Dana Shaw. Visuel Image is said to
be especially rich. Enough words; just for looking. As a
last shot, check out ArtCom's
take on the Maison Européenne de la Photographie -
which is mentioned elsewhere in this issue.

World
Wide Poll Revisited

From Wednesday, 15. November until Saturday, 18.
November, a worldwide poll will be conducted in eight
languages, to find out what it is like to be
a human being on this planet on the eve of the new
millennium.

The poll which is modestly called PlanetProject, has
been organized by 3Com, whose president Eric Benhamou wants
to know about the haves and have-nots in our electronic
age.

This planetary poll will seek to gather some idea of the
values and beliefs of the world's population. Poll
responses will be analyzed by the Harris Interactive
polling organization.

This seems to be a positive and pioneering project that
is only possible because of the existence of the World Wide
Web, so I suggest that everyone who considers themselves to
be an active member of mankind, consider taking part in
it.

The 'Official' Weather: Gloomy Gets
Downgraded

Météo France is featured again because of
the stormy autumn it is giving us. In better times this is
the official source for France's TV-weather people. If you
don't get French TV where you are, you can get the weather
from where they get it. Because it is 'official' - meaning:
as true as possible - don't expect forecasts to exceed 24
hours.